


Songs We Wrote When We Were Drunk

by listentotheink



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Side Ziall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 10:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3606681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/listentotheink/pseuds/listentotheink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts on a cold, clear night in January, with a sip of mulled wine and a walk along the Southbank.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Songs We Wrote When We Were Drunk

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Songs We Wrote When We Were Drunk by Lewis Watson.
> 
> Basically, the song made me feel melancholy and this story is a bit melancholy, I suppose.

It starts on a cold, clear night in January, with a sip of mulled wine and a walk along the Southbank. It’s one of the nights where your breath crystallizes in front of you and there’s just a tiny bit of a burn in your lungs, as you haven’t yet adjusted. Enough of a chill for your nose to turn a light shade of pink, but not enough to let gloves get in the way of your fingers. Not quite biting, but not comfortable either. Winter is slowly fading in, just as anything does.

London looks different, feels different than it had just a few weeks ago. Christmas decorations had gone up, and come down. Presents bought and exchanged, the New Year rung in with a bottle of white wine and a guitar, plucking the strings absently as he sipped straight from the bottle. _It’s going to be my year he had thought_ , as he curled up in a ball on the floor in his flat. His mind was fuzzy, slurred from the liquor pulsing through his veins. _I’ve had enough. I’m going to make it even if it kills me._

Between then and now, too much weed had been smoked, too much sex had been had, and he spent one too many nights under the flashing neon lights of club after club. He needed to get lost, feel the music rushing through his veins, feel the beat take over his heart, remind himself why he was doing what he was doing. Get the quick release that a beat could provide him with, unlike any drug he had ever tried. It wasn’t helping him, not really, but he had convinced himself that it was. He was wasting time, straying away from what he really wanted to do. The things he wanted to accomplish, the dreams that he wants to make a reality.

He’s got bright green eyes that have lost their spark, and curls that have lost the life they once carried. He wears the same jeans until they’re worn through and yesterday’s shirts. He spends what he has on groceries and guitar strings, dreams of a day he’ll be able to afford more. He’s got a smile that’s rare, but it lights up a room, and a heart that’s too full of sadness for someone his age. Walls so high, just begging to be torn down. For someone, anyone to break their way through and take him captive, take him into their arms and promise to take care of him. He reckons that that shouldn’t be so hard to find.

 _But_ , he reasons with himself on the mornings when the hangover feels like the fun wasn’t worth it, _I’m twenty-one. I’ve got so much time._

 

Green meets blue on a Saturday afternoon, seven days after his twenty second birthday. He spent it alone, nursing a vodka and cranberry. His friends all had better things to do that night, he supposes, had other people to see, people who mattered, people they weren’t with for the aesthetic. It’s not like that with Niall and Zayn. No. Never with Niall and Zayn. They’re the most genuine people he has in his life. But they were in Cardiff for an art gala that Zayn had been invited to, and Niall naturally went along to play supportive boyfriend. The others, well.

The others often make him think of himself as a novelty, expendable. Someone who completes an image when he’s surrounded by the glitz and glam of the circle he’s in. Someone to add a bit of normalcy, to make them seem more genuine than they actually are. But he doesn’t mind, not usually.

The door to the pub opens and with the burst of cold air comes a loud laugh. He jolts up, whips his head towards the door at the intruder, sees a soft wisp of brown hair and a denim jacket before he turns away again. He’s annoyed at this person, this guy who had decided to come in and cause a ruckus when he had wanted a little quiet, a little time away from the buzz of life. Before he turns away though, their eyes meet from across the room and denim jacket smiles at him. One that crinkles his eyes up.

He has to leave. He has to leave before he does something stupid, like fall in love.

 

The add for a flatmate goes out a week later, as Niall dropped the bomb when he got home that night. Said that he was moving in with Zayn, as they had been together for three years and that was the next step. He says he’s willing to help find a replacement roommate, but someone knocks on the door before they even get a chance to look.

Denim jacket stands at the door with a soft smile on his face. He looks the way that winter feels. Soft around the edges, with a calmness that can’t quite be matched.

Blue meets green, and it’s all over.

“I’m Louis.” he says. “Zayn said you might be looking for someone new to live with, and.. I’m a bit tired of living in hostels. So.”

“Harry.. I’m Harry.” Harry says, and he shows him inside.

 

The usual hesitation that comes with moving in with someone you’ve never met before isn’t there with Louis, and it catches Harry off guard. It’s not what he had expected really. But Louis comes in like a fire. Bright, burning, overtaking everything in his path. And Harry is powerless to stop it, so he burns too.

Louis is a small fire at first. Just leaves his tea mugs out when he’s finished instead of putting them in the sink. Leaves spare pens and notebooks lying around on the counter tops. His shoes smell up the hall because he hates socks, but Harry doesn’t mind all that much. He just keeps an extra can of febreeze around for the days it gets too bad, and spends an extra ten minutes collecting dishes before washing them.

Then it grows, only a little bit. Still manageable, but on the brink of losing control. He’s leaving clothes around the house that Harry picks up and washes. His laundry basket overflows in its place in the corner of the bathroom, destined to remain there unless Harry empties it. Their jumpers and jeans mix and it’s hard to tell who’s is what anymore. Where one starts and the other begins. What separates them from each other, keeps them different entities while still forcing them to be a cohesive unit.

Harry finds Louis asleep on the couch more than once and shakes him awake, sends him off to bed, even though Louis protests quite a bit. He’s still looking for a steady job, something to hold him over until he finds work on the West End. Isn’t that just lovely, Harry thinks on the nights he comes home and Louis has fallen asleep looking at a news paper. A struggling actor and a struggling musician under one roof, trying to make it with the big boys. It’s like a Hollywood love story, really.

Louis wakes him one Sunday with a mug of tea, just how Harry likes it. His hair is ruffled, and he looks sleepy and warm. He climbs into bed for a cuddle, and Harry turns on 4Music, and that’s how Harry knows. That’s how he knows that this flame that’s been dancing around his flat and around his heart has grown into a full blown fire.

 

Harry has his good days and his bad days. On the good days, he wakes up and has a shower, goes to work and makes money. Then he goes to the park and sits on a bench to write a little while before returning home and making dinner for himself and Louis.

Sometimes Louis brings home left overs from the pizza shop he works at, and they sip warm beer and eat pizza without plates or napkins and it’s nice. It’s so nice. Louis is quickly filling the holes that Niall left with his absence. It’s different, but not in a bad way. It’s good. It’s definitely good. And Harry has stopped going out for alcohol or a hit like he used to when his hands would shake.

He’s got Louis there now, and he always knows just when Harry needs a cuddle, and it’s remarkable really: How fast he learns Harry. It’s so quickly that Harry wonders if they had known each other in a previous life, or if Harry had just always been this easy to read.

 

He goes out with his other friends one weekend, and Louis won’t stop texting him. He would have come, but he had gotten back from the pizza shop just as Harry had been leaving, and he was so tired he just collapsed on the couch.

Harry’s smiling at his phone the entire time, and Grimmy comes over to sit with him at their table in the back.

“What’s got our Young Harold grinning like a Chesire Cat?”

He grabs for Harry’s phone, but Harry swats his arm away and tucks his phone back into the safety of his pocket.

“Fuck off, alright?” Harry says, sipping on his vodka-cran. “It’s not any of your business.”

“Jesus, Haz.” Nick says. “Just curious as to why you’re happy. Never seen you smile like that before.”

And Harry wants to tell him, but he knows better. Because Grimmy has this way of not keeping his mouth shut when someone has a secret that he wants to share. Then it makes it’s way through the group and Harry’s phone would be blowing up with misinformed text messages, and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want that for himself, not when his social circle is just out for the next bit of gossip rather than actually caring.

“Just happy.” Harry says softly, so soft he can barely hear himself over the music blaring at the club. “Just happy. That’s all. No reason, really.”

Grimmy is either too drunk to care, or he decides not to pry because he gets up and walks away, going to find Rita or Alexa or whoever the hell else they came with.

Harry leaves soon after, goes home to find Louis asleep on the couch. He pauses, brushes Louis’ hair out of his eyes, and then stumbles back to his room.

 

He plays at open mic nights here and there, books gigs at pubs for himself. Louis is always at his side. He drinks beer and laughs a little too loud and talks Harry up to the people at the bar. He’s got a sweet disposition, a cool confidence. He’s got no fears in approaching the man nursing a vodka tonic like it’s a life line. No qualms in saying “My Harry is better than any other of the sods in here.”  No issues going up to the girls who giggle at his sharp blue eyes and pixie like features.

Harry always watches, unable to contain the fond that washes over his features. Louis always sends him a cheeky wink, and Harry makes his way towards the the stage and plays through his set. Sometimes, he leaves with more CDs than he came with.

Louis helps him with that too. Stays up an extra hour after he’s worked a long shift. Slides tracklistings into the covers of plastic CD cases methodically, while Harry burns copy after copy of his EP, his eyes going blurry from staring at his computer screen. They become a team, and it’s easy, and it never ceases to amaze Harry just how far Louis will go to help him. He asks him why one night, and Louis just shrugs.

“Because I believe in you.”

And that’s more than Harry has had in a lifetime. _Louis_ is more than he’s had in a lifetime.

His heart swells up just a bit, and Louis curls up like a kitten on Harry’s blankets, sliding tracklists, snapping CDs into cases, stacking them on the nightstand. He looks the way winter feels. Soft around the edges, sleepy, a soft comfort in the dull glow of Harry’s room.

Harry looks over his shoulder a few minutes later, and Louis has fallen asleep.

 

Of course, for everything that Harry takes from Louis, he gives just as much. Whenever Louis brings home a new script for an audition, Harry runs lines with him until his head hurts and his throat is sore. It’s harder to break into the acting business than the music industry, Harry realises one night. Louis had locked himself in his room after another hopeful audition that had turned into a “you’re just not what we’re looking for right now.”

With music it takes hard work, yeah, but once you’ve got a following there’s going to be a demand. That demand is going to either be met by yourself or a label that takes a risk and signs you. But with acting, it all comes down to what a casting director and the director want. Even if you can handle the part, play the role perfectly, you have to have the look or else there’s nothing you can do.

And it’s really shit for Louis, because Harry has seen what he can do. He’s brilliant, he really is. He’s got this magic and charisma that would translate so well on stage, if he would just be given a chance.

On nights like this, when Harry is playing softly in the window by the balcony and Louis comes in with a discouraged look on his face, Harry feels a pang in his heart. Feels like it’s not fair because he’s out playing shows and his dream is on the brink of becoming a reality and Louis is stuck.

But he just says “Don’t worry about me, Curly. I’ll be more famous than you. Just wait and see.”

His smile never quite reaches his eyes, and the pang Harry feels becomes more intense when Louis’ door shuts and the lock clicks.

On nights like this, Harry burns CDs in silence, clicks them into cases alone, plays his guitar late into the night without having any sort of direction, keeps it quiet so Louis can have his own time. He always has Louis in mind, always makes sure he gives him enough time and space to calm down, lets him come to Harry when he’s ready.

And Harry waits. He’ll always wait for Louis.

 

Harry gets a meeting with a record label the day Louis gets cast in an ensemble role in a show on the West End, and it feels like their dreams aren’t as far out of reach as they thought.

 

They both keep their jobs even though they both seem to spend more time outside of those jobs than ever before. Harry feels like he lives at the recording studio as he’s been busy working on his first ever professionally made EP. He hasn’t seen his friends in ages, let alone Louis, who is just as busy as he is.

But you can bet your ass that he’s at every single performance of Louis’ show opening week, and he was waiting at the stage door for him with an arm full of flowers and and an embarrassingly wide smile. Everyone else is waiting for the lead, some fancy, important person in the theatre world that Harry has never heard of but Louis counts as one of his idols. But Harry is just waiting for his boy.

He comes out the door and dives straight into Harry’s arms, a beaming smile on his face.

And that’s when the fire that’s been at a slow burn for the months they’ve been living together finally consumes his heart.

That’s when Harry knows he’s in love.

 

He texts Niall so he can whine and complain about the misfortunes of falling in love with Louis, and Niall calls him. All Harry can hear on the other end is cackling because “Zayn owes him twenty quid and a blowie” and Harry hangs up.

Some friend he is.

 

“Just had the worst day, like, ever.” Louis calls from the hallway. Harry makes a small noise, acknowledging that he heard, and goes back to plucking the strings on his guitar softly. Thing is, he had called out of work, stayed home all day to work on music, even though he didn’t really have the money to do that.

But it was one of his Bad Days, and he knew there was no way he was going to be able to focus on making a “venti-caramel-macchiato-with-soy-milk-and-chai-with-foam”.

Not when his hands were shaking and his brain was buzzing, full of words and notes and chords that he had to get out. Full of panic and anxiety that only would have gotten worse if he had gone in. Playing was the only thing that had any sort of hold on him. The one thing that could tie him down to earth in the easiest way possible, the way he knew best.

Loving Louis wasn’t easy. It kept him tied, sure. Kept him from floating, kept him from the booze, the weed, the drugs that made him “creative” (but really just made him live the tortured artist stereotype). But Louis is a bright, burning force to be reckoned with. A burning flame, keeping Harry entranced but standing completely on his own. He’s not easy to love for someone so consumed by the darkness in life, someone who considers himself made of melancholy. How could someone like Louis love someone like Harry?

How could the person behind Harry’s songs ever actually want him back? Usually green and blue would find a way to come together and create a brilliant shade of viridian, but this time around.. They’re simply destined to remain apart, separate entities that can bounce off each other, become dotted by the other. Green dots in blue, blue dots in green, but they could never fully mix together, never immerse in each other and become one cohesive unit.

Destiny was a cruel, cruel bitch.

Louis walks into the living room, carrying a rather large bottle of wine and two classes. Harry looks over at him from his place on the window ledge, and tries not to let his breath catch.

Louis looks the way rain feels. Soft, refreshing, tired, like he had been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and it’s just lifted as the first drop hits your skin. At least, that’s what Harry sees whenever Louis comes home.

Today he’s more like the start of a storm. When your heart starts beating just that little bit faster because you know what’s going to happen. That the flaws of the day are going to wash away faster than they normally do.

He wanders over, still in his black, flour covered polo from the pizza shop he works at, and drops down on the ledge across from Harry. He opens the bottle, pours two glasses, hands one across to Harry and leans his head back.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone in today.” Harry says, he sips his wine and plucks the strings of his guitar softly, staring out the window at the street below. “I didn’t. We could have just had a lazy day.”

“Someone has to pay the bills.” Louis replies, his voice has a cheeky edge to it and it makes Harry smile just the slightest bit. He drains his glass and pours another, tilts his head back against the wall. “Besides, it’s not like it was a completely shit day. Just really fucking long.”

“Mm.” Harry nods.

“Because, like. I’ve had shit days before.” Louis says, draining his glass. He sets the glass down and takes a drink right from the bottle. “This wasn’t one of them. It was just really long, really fucking long.”

Harry nods to show that he’s listening, and he starts playing again softly.

“Like, not only did three footy teams come in right after the other,” Louis says, his speech slurring just a bit as he takes another long drink from the bottle. “But my agent calls to tell me about another failed audition. Like, cheers, mate. I already know I’m shit. Might as well just write it in the bleedin’ sky. ‘Louis Tomlinson: Fucks Up Another Audition.’”

“You’ll get there, Lou.” Harry says. He looks him over with a soft smile. “You’ve just had a five month run on the West End. You need a break, anyway.”

“Breaks don’t put food on the table or money in the bank.” Louis says quietly. “And that’s what we need, right? Money, food, clothes.. All that.”

“I don’t need that.” Harry says with a shrug. “Just need you.”

He knows that was bold, knows he should have been more cautious in saying it. But in this life, in this world where they don’t know if they’ll ever have the comforts other people do, taking risks can be the most exhilarating thing. And Louis looks like rain and smells like pizza and he gives Harry a sense of clarity and the feeling that he matters. He’s the first one that’s been able to do that, and Harry thinks the flight is worth the fall.

And, he doesn’t think he’s mistaken when he sees Louis lean closer.

 

They kiss and it tastes like the red wine that’s stained Louis’ lips. It’s soft, hesitant at first, but Harry presses in firmer and Louis slips his fingers into his curls and it feels like this is something they should have been doing all along.

Louis smells like pizza and the cigarettes he smokes when he’s nervous or stressed, and the smile on his lips tastes like love and the sun and the impossible becoming possible all at once.

Harry pulls away, noses along Louis’ jaw softly, traces circles on the soft skin at the back of Louis’ neck. His heart is beating too fast for it to possibly stay in his chest, and he feels.. he feels whole. Like everything had been slotted into place, like all of the pieces had been found and snapped together. Every question he had, answered.

Louis opens his eyes and blue meets green and Harry’s breath catches in his throat.

“What ya think, Haz?” Louis asks quietly. “Got a song in you tonight? I’ll help, yeah?”

“Always got a song in me.” Harry says, smiling now. The one that comes and goes. Always fleeting, never permanent. “Have done since you came along.”

“You have dimples.” Louis says, his voice distant. He pokes Harry’s cheek gently, presses his thumb into the dent there, and a smile to rival Harry’s splits his face. Harry sets his guitar to the side for a moment, lets his hands wander up Louis’ thighs.

Harry thinks, for a moment, that his smile could become a more permanent fixture on his face.

 

He’s playing a show to a sold out crowd at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. Louis is stood to the side of the stage, but he’s not watching. He’s just there because he knew how important this was, how much Harry needed him. How much he always needs him. Needs him like a sailor needs a beacon on the shore, that constant guidance, a strong hold. A steady force next to him, pushing him when he needs it, holding him back if it’s too risky for him to carry on. He’s the missing half, and Harry has never been more happy to be whole.

Only. It’s not like it was. It’s been a year. Three hundred and sixty five days since that first night and. He doesn’t know what’s happened.

They’ve hit a brick wall, instead of going up, up, up, they were stuck somewhere in the middle. Past all of the honeymoon phase, settling into each other. But if ships passing in the night is the next part of a relationship, if Louis falling asleep on the couch at night instead of next to him comes with that, Harry doesn’t think he wants it anymore. He wants blue and green mixing to make a beautiful viridian. He wants that. He wants his other half back. He wants his boy.

“I’ve got one more.” he says into the mic. “It’s nre, this is the first time I’ve played it live. So apologies if it’s rough.”

The chords are soft in the beginning, just like most of the things he’s written before. He’s not powerful like Ed Sheeran, he hasn’t got power ballads with a horn section like Passenger. He’s got simple. Simple that means something to him and to other people, and to Louis. Always Louis.

“And I keep dreaming about the night when we begun,” he croons into the mic. “And the songs that we wrote, when we were drunk.. we had it all.”

He stops playing and the screams and applause is deafening. He says a quiet thank you, takes his guitar off, heads off stage to the waiting arms of his boy. Green meets blue, and it starts all over again, just like that cold day in January.


End file.
